


like whispering "you know me"

by thekindmagic



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: ...none of that seems exactly right but it's as close as I can get, Ambiguous Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:36:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9084760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekindmagic/pseuds/thekindmagic
Summary: From a sentence prompt: "Can you please come and get me?"(Chapter 10 spoilers for Ignis)





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "3 Rounds and a Sound" by Blind Pilot, because I'm uncreative and can't come up with my own titles.  
> (If you haven't heard the song you should go listen to it, it's good I promise)
> 
> These boys are at least 97 of my 99 problems.

It’s too late to be up. Not that Noctis would get much sleep anyway, but not being able to _try_ is making him more frustrated by the minute. He fidgets with his phone, checking the time for the eighth time in five minutes.

Gladio snores and rolls over in his hotel bed. Prompto doesn’t wake up.

Noctis sighs and flops back on the other bed, making an ugly static sound against the starchy blankets.

He checks the time again.

So, fine, it’s actually only around nine-thirty. But it’s been dark for hours already thanks to the Starscourge. And it’s been a really long day, hunting down some local monsters to pay their way further inland, getting into a skirmish with daemons on their way back to the hotel…

God, it’s not a huge town, the train station they came in at is the most exciting landmark. How hard is it to find coffee?

 _He’s dead_ , Noctis’s brain supplies unhelpfully. _The Empire found him and he’s dead, or maybe daemons ate him, and you got him hurt and you let him go out there and it’s your fault. He’s dead and he hates you._

Except he’s not fucking dead.

Because he can’t be.

Because it’s Ignis.

…What’s _taking_ so long?

Noctis’s phone buzzes in his hand, and he answers before the first ring cycle ends.

“Ignis?”

“Prompto isn’t picking up.”

Noctis breathes. _Not dead_. He looks over to where Prompto’s phone is lying on the bedside table, not plugged in. “Uh. No,” he says. “He’s asleep. He and Gladio both crashed.”

Ignis makes a frustrated humming noise. “Right.”

“You didn’t tell them you were leaving,” Noctis accuses. Now he has the headspace to get pissed about that. Ignis hadn’t been going to tell Noctis either - Noctis just happened to be struggling with the ice machine in the hallway when Ignis had headed past him and out the hotel’s front door.

 _Just picking up coffee_ , Ignis had said. _I can manage on my own. I have to learn to do this._

Noctis wasn’t convinced, but he hadn’t had shoes on, so his options had been limited. By the time he got back to the room with Gladio’s goddamn ice, there was nobody awake to complain to.

That all happened over an hour ago.

…Come to think of it, maybe pissed isn’t exactly what he is after all.

“Is, uh. Is everything okay?”

“It was a bit out of my way,” Ignis says stiffly, “but I may have overheard some useful rumors regarding Imperial troop movements.”

“Great,” Noctis says, nonplussed. “And you were gonna tell… Prompto?”

There’s dead silence. Not even breathing sounds. It lasts a good long time, and Noctis starts to wonder whether Ignis hung up on him - that’d be a first.

“Iggy?”

“It was, as I said, a bit out of my way,” Ignis says quietly.

It takes a second. Noctis’s eyes widen. He swallows hard. “ _Oh_ ,” he says, then wants punch himself in the face.

“Indeed.” Ignis sounds totally disgusted with himself. “I’m afraid I completely lost track of my steps. I’d rather not risk getting directions, since I’d have to tell a stranger where we’re staying.”

“Yeah,” Noctis says automatically. He’s listening, he understands, but it’s not coming together right in his mind. He can’t make it real.

Ignis sighs, exhausted and resigned. “Noct,” he says, and Noctis can hear the strain in his voice. “Can you please… come and get me?”

 

* * *

 

“Why Prompto?”

Ignis jolts up from the bench he’d been sitting on, startled.

Okay, maybe not the _best_ way for Noctis to announce himself in the middle of the night in a strange town to someone who can’t see. He feels really bad about that. But still. “You usually call me.”

Ignis’s shoulders relax. He reorients, lining himself up with Noctis’s voice like a compass needle.

Noctis swallows.

“You have enough on your mind without me to think about,” Ignis says dismissively. “Shall we head back?”

They should, yeah. It’s not the smartest thing to be out wandering around after dark.

…But as soon as they get back, Ignis will make himself small again. He’ll go quiet and let the others guide him around, he’ll try to stay in corners and out of the way, and Noctis might _never_ get the chance to talk to him.

“Listen, just…” Noctis goes over to the bench Ignis was sitting on. Ignis turns to track his footsteps, pivots with him like in those old astronomy texts full of stars and gravitational pulls. Noctis sinks onto the bench, staring up at him. “Just sit down for a sec.”

Ignis frowns. If he says no, Noctis isn’t going to push - it’s late and he’s tired and this is probably a dumb idea anyway, it’s not like he has some brilliant thing to say that will fix anything.

But Ignis sits down.

The streets are deserted. Ignis got pretty good and lost, and they’re at the corner of some little grassy area that’s probably meant for pets. It’s quiet, no trains coming in for hours, and all the people passing through are safe in their hotel beds. There’s a streetlamp a little ways off, and the light from it looks warm and clean against the dark backdrop of the town.

It’s calm like nothing has been since Altissia, just sitting with Ignis on this stupid park bench. Noctis can feel his eyes welling up. He takes a deep breath, and it rasps in his throat.

“Noct,” Ignis says softly, concerned.

Wow, this was _not_ supposed to be about him. “Sorry,” Noctis says shakily.

Ignis reaches out with one hand, unsure of how to help, and Noctis grabs hold, links their fingers together and squeezes.

After a moment, Ignis squeezes back.

They don’t do this. Not anymore, not for a long time.

Sometimes when Noctis remembers his nightmares, he thinks he woke up with Ignis’s arms around him, he thinks maybe he clung to Ignis in the dark until sleep swallowed him back up.

But aside from that? They haven’t touched like this since they were still basically kids. It’s _unbecoming_ , or whatever Ignis had said when he stopped spending the night and started wearing gloves all the time. _Indecorous_.

Right now, Noctis really couldn’t give a shit.

“First of all, I’m _going_ to think about you,” he says firmly. “Nothing you can do about that.”

Ignis breathes in, sharp. He shakes his head.

Noctis doesn’t let him speak. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he says, rapid-fire. “I don’t like you fighting, or taking dumb risks because you think you have to prove yourself or something.”

“I can manage,” Ignis says flatly. He moves his hand like he’s considering pulling away.

Noctis holds on, but he’s quickly running out of words. “Is this how it felt when I wanted to drive at night?”

That startles a laugh out of Ignis. There’s an edge of desperation to it. “I never stopped you.” He looks so tired, his face begging for Noctis to drop this and just let him keep running himself into the ground.

“Because I’m royalty,” Noctis argues. “You would have told me no if you could have.”

Ignis sighs. “I’ve put myself at risk before,” he says. “This is only a matter of degree. I understand that it may be selfish, and difficult to understand. I understand it may be a dangerous choice. But, please, can’t you just… It’s still my choice to make, Noct.”

Noctis isn’t getting through, he doesn’t have the words. He knows, he _knows_ , he hears and he understands. He just hates it. He holds Ignis’s hand between both of his own, wanting to undo the stupid glove and throw it away down a sewer somewhere. “Maybe you don’t care if you die,” he says. “But I do.”

The sound Ignis makes is frustrated and miserable. Noctis scoots in closer until they’re pressed alongside each other, shoulder to hip to knee.

“It’s not that I don’t care,” Ignis says quietly. “It’s that there are things which matter more to me.”

They’re in dangerous territory here. Either one of them could pull the trump card at any moment, could stab straight for the heart of this conversation and leave them both reeling.

…But they’ve gone this long, haven’t they? Noctis would rather never touch it at all than get it wrong, and bringing it into the middle of all this frustration and guilt would be so, _so_ wrong.

Noctis puts his head on Ignis’s shoulder. "Tell me, next time,“ he says. "At least do that.”

Ignis doesn’t answer.

“Sorry, Specs, that’s the deal. I came out here. You have to meet me halfway.”

Laughing quietly, Ignis rests his cheek against Noctis’s hair. Noctis can feel the edge of his glasses.

“I suppose you may have a point.”

Noctis smiles. “Mm-hmm. I’m good like that.”

“Right,” Ignis murmurs.

It really is quiet out here. Peaceful, even.

They’ll head back soon. It seems a little less important now.


End file.
